338 THE DECLINE AND FALL not easily be reconciled with the standard of human virtue ; his metaphysical qualities are darkly expressed ; but each page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an evidence of his power ; the unity of his name is inscribed on the first table of the law ; and his sanctuary was never defiled by any visible image of the invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the faith of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened, by the spiritual devotion of the synagogue ; and the authority of Ma- homet will not justify his perpetual reproach that the Jews of Mecca or Medina adored Ezra as the son of God."^ But the children of Israel had ceased to be a people ; and the religions of the world were guilty, at least in the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons, or daughters, or companions, to the supreme God. In the rude idolatiy of the Arabs, the crime is manifest and audacious ; the Sabians are poorly excused by the pre-eminence of the first planet or intelligence in their celestial hierarchy ; and in the Magian system the conflict of the two principles betrays the imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of paganism ; their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East ; the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration ; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honours of a god- dess. ^"^ The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation appear to contradict the principle of the divine unity. In their obvious sense they introduce three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus into the substance of the son of God ; ^^ an orthodox com- of the causative form of the root slm, which connotes " peace ". The idea was to make peace with the stronger — to surrender to Allah.] ^* Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi and the other commentators quoted by Sale adhere to the charge ; but I do not understand that it is coloured by the most ob- scure or absurd tradition of the Talmudists. ^^ Hottinger, Hist. Orient, p. 225-228. The Collyridian heresy was carried from Thrace to Arabia by some women, and the name was borrowed from the KoAAupt's, or cake, which they offered to the goddess. This example, that of Beryllus, bishop of Bostra (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. vi. c. 33), nnd several others, may excuse the re- proach, Arabia hsereseojn ferax. 81 The three gods in the Koran (c. 4, p. 81, c. 5, p. 92) are obviously directed against our Catholic mystery ; but the Arabic commentators understand them of the Father, the Son, and the Virgin Mary, an heretical Trinity, maintained, as it is said, by some barbarians at the council of Nice (Eutych. Annal. tom. i. p. 440). But the existence of the .l/ff;-/<77?/to is denied by the candid Beausobre (Hist, de Manichi^isme, tom. i. p. 532), and he derives the mistake from the word Hoiiah, the Holy Ghost, which, in some Oriental tongues, is of the feminine gender, and is figuratively styled the Mother of Christ in the gospel of the Nazarenes. {
